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The 2002 Detroit Area Study (DAS) is a face-to-face survey of adults in the Detroit, Michigan tri-county area. Respondents were asked questions about their place of residence, level of political participation, general political attitudes, concern about the environment, environmental consumerism, environmental justice, and the quality of the environment in their current neighborhood and the neighborhood in which they were raised. Information was also collected on respondents' job responsibilities, current financial situation, the availability of childcare and transportation, and their own feelings of self-worth. Interviewer observations about the condition of the respondent's neighborhood were also included. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, ethnicity, marital status, household income, education level, employment status, occupation, and industry, labor union membership, religious preference, frequency of religious attendance, and the presence of children in the household.

The Kinder Houston Area Survey is a longitudinal study that began in May 1982 after Houston, Texas, recovered from the recession of the mid-1980s. The overall purpose of this research was to measure systematically the public responses to the new economic, educational, and environmental challenges, and to make the findings of this continuing project readily available to civic and business leaders, to the general public, and to research scholars. Part 1, All Responses from 25 Successive Samples, contains all the responses from the successive representative samples of Harris County residents from 1982 through 2014. These are the data that enabled the project to analyze continuity and change among area residents over the course of 26 years. In 13 of the 14 surveys (the years from 1994 through 2014, the one exception being 1996), the surveys were expanded with oversample interviews in Houston's ethnic communities. Using identical random-selection procedures, and terminating after the first few questions if the respondent was not of the ethnic background required, additional interviews were conducted in each of the years to enlarge and equalize the samples of Anglo, African American, and Hispanic respondents at about 500 each. In 1995 and 2002, the research also included large representative samples (N=500) from Houston's Asian communities, with one-fourth of the interviews conducted in Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, or Korean -- the only such surveys in the country. These additional interviews are included in Part 2, Additional Oversample Interviews.

The data contained in Part 2 are for Restricted-Use of Part 1, All Responses from 25 Successive Samples.

The data contained in Part 3 are based on a 14-year total of 6,576 Anglos, 6,086 African Americans, 6,094 Hispanics, and 1,250 Asians, along with 387 others, and are of particular value in assessing the similarities and differences both within and among Houston's (and America's) four largest ethnic groups. Beginning in 2003, the data files have incorporated detailed information from the 2000 Census on the characteristics of the respondent's neighborhood, not only at the level of home ZIP code, but also by Census tract and block group.

In Part 4, Restricted-Use information from 2000 Census, the data record the population and geographical area of each of the three sectors, distributions by ethnicity and immigrant status, age and gender composition, employment and commuting patterns, and levels of education and income. With this information incorporated in the datasets covering five years of expanded surveys, researchers are able to connect the respondents' perceptions and experiences with information on the neighborhoods in which they live, thereby adding a contextual dimension to analyses of the factors that account for individual differences in attitudes and beliefs. Conducted during February and March of each year, the interviews measured perspectives on the local and national economy, on poverty programs, inter-ethnic relationships. Also captured were respondents' beliefs about discrimination and affirmative action, education, crime, health care, taxation, and community service, as well as their assessments of downtown development, mobility and transit, land-use controls and environmental concerns, and their attitudes toward abortion, homosexuality, and other aspects of the social agenda. Also recorded were religious and political orientations, as well as an array of demographic and immigration characteristics, socioeconomic indicators, and family structures.

The Youth Development Study (YDS) was initiated as a school-based study of adolescent children and their parents to examine the consequences of formative experiences in adolescence for mental health, value formation, educational achievement, and multiple facets of behavioral adjustment. Particular attention was directed to the impacts of early work experience. Data were also obtained about parent-child and peer relationships and experiences in school. As the study continued, the focus shifted to adult development and attainment and, most recently, mid-life adjustment and health. This comprehensive longitudinal study now encompasses three generations: the initial cohort studied from adolescence to mid-life (G2), their parents (G1), and their adolescent children (G3). Data from three generations in the same families enable study of intergenerational relationships and differences in the experience of adolescence and transition to adulthood across parent and child cohorts. The YDS covers a wide range of topics of interest to sociologists, social psychologists, developmental psychologists, and life course scholars, including the development and impacts of agentic resources, socioeconomic attainment, processes of inter- and intra-generational mobility, objective and subjective work conditions, family relationships, intergenerational relationships, mental and physical health, and well-being.

In-school administration of paper surveys during the first four years of the study was supplemented by mailed surveys. Subsequent data collection took place entirely by mail, with 19 surveys conducted between 1988 and 2011. A final survey was conducted on-line in 2019. Survey data was obtained from the parents (G1) of this cohort during the first and fourth waves of the study (1988 and 1991). Surveys of the children (G3) began in 2009, continued in 2010 and 2011 (by mail) and in 2019-2020 (online).

The Youth Development Study measures a wide range of formative experiences and both psychological and behavioral variables, using survey methodology.

The G1 surveys obtained information about socioeconomic background as well as attitudes toward teenage employment, the parents' own employment as teenagers, their current work experiences, and educational expectations for their children.

The G2 surveys during the high school years included detailed questions about students' work and volunteer experiences, as well as experiences in their family, school, and peer groups, with an emphasis on the ways that working affected other life domains, mental health, and well-being. Shorter surveys containing many of the same topics were administered to students in 1992, 1993, and 1994, and included questions about current family and living arrangements. In 1995, a full survey was administered covering the wide range of topics included in previous surveys as well as information about career plans and life events that had occurred in the past five years. G2 Waves 9 through 19 (1997-2011) included many of the same questions contained in earlier surveys and additional sections that focused on the respondents' educational experiences, family relationships, sources of living expenses, and health and well-being. The most recent G2 survey (2019), administered on-line, included questions about support of aging parents. The YDS is unique in its coverage of both objective and subjective work experiences from adolescence to mid-life.

The topics covered by the G3 surveys are very similar to the G2 variables described above. Variables in each G2 and G3 wave are included in cross-wave codebooks, available at the Data Archive Codebook website.

For an overview of the Youth Development Study, see Mortimer, Jeylan T. (2012) "The Evolution, Contributions, and Prospects of the Youth Development Study: An Investigation in Life Course Social Psychology." Social Psychology Quarterly 75(1, March):5-27.